1. Field
This disclosure relates to cryptographic systems and electronic document management systems.
2. Description of the Related Art
Global access of electronic information can be critical for even the smallest of businesses today. Very few companies operate solely within the boundaries of a single location or their employee list. Over the last 25 years technology has rapidly advanced and expanded these boundaries. The advent of such technologies as the Internet, intranets, extranets, and e-mail have made the electronic transfer of information common place in businesses today. Management of business information is critical to the success of modern businesses. A technology known as Electronic Document Management (EDM) aims to provide organizations with the ability to find any document, created in any application, by anyone, at any time, dealing with any subject, at any place in the world. EDM includes managing multiple versions of a document. PC DOCS, Inc. (Burlington, Mass.) is one of the world's leading providers of EDM solutions. With the advanced technology of EDM comes a wide variety of information that has varying economic values and privacy aspects. Users may not know what information is monitored or intercepted or who is using their computer.
An electronic document management system (EDMS) is a combination of databases, indexes, and search engines utilized to store and retrieve electronic documents distributed across an organization. An EDMS is designed to provide the structure required for an organization to properly manage and share its electronic document resources.
A wide array of information is typically stored in a company's EDMS. This includes:
strategic and corporate plans;
proprietary product and service information;
confidential legal documents;
private health information; and
private employment information.
As companies increase the efficiency of accessing more information, their security risks also increase. According to a recent survey by Ernst & Young LLP:
74% of the respondents said their security risks have increased over the prior two years;
more than a quarter said that their security risks have increase at a faster rate than the growth of their computing;
55% of the respondents lacked confidence that their computer systems could withstand an internal attack;
71% of security professionals are not confident that their organizations are protected from external attack; and
two thirds of the respondents reported losses resulting from a security breach over the prior two years.
The bottom line is simple—the more information available, the more security needed.
It has been said that “There is no need to break the window of a house if the front door is unlocked.” This saying certainly applies to computer security. The “unlocked doors” in electronic information security include:
e-mail;
electronic document management “including non-EDMS file systems); and
stolen hardware.
One of the fastest growing means of communication today is e-mail. It is estimated that over one million e-mail messages pass through the Internet every hour. E-mail provides a quick, economical, easy to use method of sharing both thoughts and electronic information. Unfortunately, e-mail is like an electronic postcard for the world to see. It is transmitted across the Internet using the Simple-mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP). This protocol has virtually no security features. Messages and files can be read by anyone who comes into contact with them.
The number of documents managed by organizations increases daily. Knowledge is becoming the most important product for companies today. As EDM enhances a company's productivity and efficiency to manage that knowledge it also exposes that company to unauthorized access to that knowledge. The typical EDMS solely relies on password protection for security.
The value of the approximately 265,000 portable computers (laptops, notebooks, palmtops) reported stolen in 1996 was $805 million, a 27% increase from 1995. However, the data on these portable computers is worth much more than the hardware itself. It is critical that the data stored on any type of hardware, whether it is a desktop computer, portable computer or server, must be properly secured from any unauthorized access.
Some of the “locks” used for electronic information security include:
passwords,
firewalls,
smart cards, and
encryption.
Passwords are often used to prevent unauthorized individuals from accessing electronic data. Passwords may also be used to link activities that have occurred to a particular individual. The problem with passwords is that if any unauthorized party steals or guesses a password, the security of the computer system may be severely compromised. Passwords are wholly inadequate for file archiving.
Systems using firewalls prevent intruders from accessing the firm's internal systems. Password-based firewall systems do not provide positive user identification nor do they protect electronic data that is stored on a server, has left the firm on a portable computer, is sent via e-mail over the Internet, or is stored on a floppy disk.
The typical smart card is a self-contained, tamper resistant, credit card size device that selves as a storage device and is equipped with an integrated microprocessor chip and non-volatile electronic memory. The smart card processes information on the integrated microprocessor chip. Security is enhanced because the user must have the smart card along with the user's confidential information (e.g., a password) to gain access to their computer files. Passwords are kept off computer hosts and on the smart card to enhance security. Smart cards typically can only be accessed with a user defined password. Many smart cards include a lock-out feature so that failed attempts at the smart card password will lock the card out to prevent any unauthorized or fraudulent use of the smart card. ISO 7816 compliant smart cards and smart card readers follow industry standards.
Increasingly, information technology professionals are turning to encryption technologies to ensure the privacy of business information. Encryption can provide confidentiality, source authentication, and data integrity. Unfortunately encryption generally is cumbersome and difficult to use. A major obstacle for the implementation of encryption technologies has been their disruption to the users' workflow.
Encryption is a process of scrambling data utilizing a mathematical function called an encryption algorithm, and a key that affects the results of this mathematical function. Data, before becoming encrypted, is said to be “clear text.” Encrypted data is said to be “cipher text.” With most encryption algorithms, it is nearly impossible to convert cipher text back to clear text without knowledge of the encryption key used. The strength of the encrypted data is generally dependent upon the encryption algorithm and the size of the encryption key.
There are two types of encryption: symmetric (private key) and asymmetric (public key).
Private key encryption uses a common secret key for both encryption and decryption. Private key encryption is best suited to be used in trusted work groups. It is fast and efficient, and properly secures large files. The leading private key encryption is DES (Data Encryption Standard). DES was adopted as a federal standard in 1977. It has been extensively used and is considered to be strong encryption. Other types of private key encryption include: Triple-DES, IDEA, RC4, MD5, Blowfish and Triple Blowfish.
Public key encryption uses a pair of keys, one public and one private. Each user has a personal key pair, and the user's public (or decryption) key is used by others to send encrypted messages to the user, while the private (or decryption) key is employed by the user to decrypt messages received. Public key encryption and key generation algorithms include the public domain Diffie Hellman algorithm, the RSA algorithm invented by Riversi, Shamir and Adleman at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and the Pretty Good Privacy algorithm (PGP) developed by Phil Zimmermann. Because of their mathematical structure, public key encryption is slower than most private key systems, thus making them less efficient for use in a trusted network or for encrypting large files.
Although these private key and public key encryption algorithms do a good job at maintaining the confidentiality of the encrypted matter, they have numerous problems. The biggest obstacle to adoption of any type of encryption system has been ease of use. Typical encryption systems are very cumbersome. They require a user to interrupt their normal work flow, save the clear text document, activate the separate encryption software, and save the cipher text document under a different name. Where the subject document is ordinary e-mail contents, the process is especially cumbersome, because the clear text must first be created in a separate application, then encrypted, then attached to the e-mail message.
A major concern in computing today is “total cost of ownership,” or TCO. TCO recognizes that while a program might be inexpensive (or even free in the case of PGP for non-commercial use), there are significant costs in using the software. This includes the cost of installation, training, lost productivity during use and from bugs, and maintenance.
Even where one of the typical encryption systems might satisfy a user's TCO needs, they may not even be an available option. For example, typical EDMSes are self-contained and are not compatible with typical encryption systems.
It is therefore the object of the invention to provide a document encryption and decryption system which solves these problems. It is a further object to provide a document encryption and decryption system which works with minimal disruption of a user's normal workflow. It is a further object to provide a document encryption and decryption system which is compatible with EDMSes. It is a further object to provide a document encryption and decryption system which minimizes TCO. It is a further object to provide a document encryption and decryption system which takes advantage of the features of smart cards which are not available from pure on-line security systems.
Throughout this description, elements appearing in figures are assigned three-digit reference designators, where the most significant digit is the figure number and the two least significant digits are specific to the element. An element that is not described in conjunction with a figure may be presumed to have the same characteristics and function as a previously described element having a reference designator with the same least significant digits.